Skip main navigation

New offer! Get 30% off your first 2 months of Unlimited Monthly. Start your subscription for just £29.99 £19.99. New subscribers only. T&Cs apply

Find out more

Arpeggiation, example “You Took Advantage Of Me”

Arpeggiation, example "You Took Advantage Of Me"
8.1
Let’s have a look at another technique now called “arpeggiation” or “rolling” chords. Supposing our final chord in a piece is C major7, now we can play that by rolling the left hand.
24.9
We can roll both hands - and we can keep this going - rolling chords. And we can roll the other way - although that’s used less frequently.
47.4
Let’s have an example. Let’s look at “You Took Advantage Of Me” - “Satin Doll” does’t really lend itself to arpeggiation. I’m going to roll the first chord in the left hand - I’ll just roll it probably in the left hand. Then it’s E diminished. Then it’s F minor. When I play - because I’m rolling it - a seventh-tenth or a fifth-tenth - depends on how I’m feeling - F sharp diminished - another fifth-tenth.
83.7
And then let’s when we get to the end - do some dominant pedalling.
107.5
It’s out of time
200.3
OK, somebody may have noticed that I played a Ray chord in the middle there, and at the end I did a little bit of rolling down. It’s not supposed to be in time but this is the idea of rolling, at least in the left hand. We wouldn’t probably do a whole chorus of that but we would introduce it at moments when it seemed musically correct - arpeggiation.

We consider the technique of arpeggiation or rolling chords and as an example apply it to the standard “You Took Advantage Of Me”.

You can download the chart for the tune of “You Took Advantage Of Me” in PDF format at the bottom of this step.

This article is from the free online

Learn Jazz Piano: Advanced and Solo Playing

Created by
FutureLearn - Learning For Life

Reach your personal and professional goals

Unlock access to hundreds of expert online courses and degrees from top universities and educators to gain accredited qualifications and professional CV-building certificates.

Join over 18 million learners to launch, switch or build upon your career, all at your own pace, across a wide range of topic areas.

Start Learning now